If you cannot bear all that rolling and cutting and rolling and cutting…try these which are completely inspired by eccles cakes.

Take a pack of ready rolled puff pastry (or make it or buy the kind in a block and roll it until it is just a couple of millimeters thick.  If you buy it, do try to get the good, all butter kind (which you can get from Waitrose, Whole Foods, and some on line retailers – just google “all butter pastry”).

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade.

Cut the pastry into squares about 4 inches by four inches and put a little blob of mince meat in the centre of each square.  You can make mince meat and it is not hard but you can also buy good mince meat.  If you do buy it, buy good stuff and remember that traditional mince meat has suet which is a kind of animal fat so if you have any vegetarians, look out for vegetarian mince meat.

With a little brush, brush the edges of each little square with milk or water and then fold each corner in to make a little parcel and seal each parcel by squashing down gently.

Turn them over and brush the tops with more milk.  Sprinkle with sugar and cut a couple of slashes into the top of each one with a sharp knife or scissors.

Put on parchment paper on a baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes – watch them because they can burn quite quickly.

Eat with brandy butter or a good piece of strong cheese.

They are pretty manksville the next day (puff pastry does not keep well) so you may as well eat them all now.  Yum.

To make eccles cakes, by the way, you melt a little butter and mix with sugar, raisins, currants, saltanas and some cinnamon and cloves and then put a blob of this into the middle of each square of puff pastry.  So you see there is not much difference.  In fact, why bother making eccles filling – just use bottled mince meat.  Who will know except you?